Knight Master
by flipomatic
Summary: Even though they told me this was an important job, I knew better. This position was given to the clumsiest, weakest, and most pathetic knight of each generation. I was doomed to a life of monotonous paperwork and eternal boredom. That is, until all hell broke loose. Karezi. Prospitian Times part 4. Rated T for Karkat's swearing.


Author Note: The next part of Prospitian Times is finally here. I'm sorry it took so long, I've kind of been putting off posting it. I would say it's possible to read this story and understand everything without reading the other parts of the series, but that would be a lie. You don't have to read the other parts, but I highly recommend it. There is a homestuck community with all of the parts gathered, and it's not too hard to find. I will continue to publish later parts in it as well.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

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"From this day forward, you shall be a knight master. This is an important position; you will be expected to monitor all of the knights under your jurisdiction, brief and debrief them on their assignments, and be their primary connection to the throne." The elder man stared down as if daring me to argue. As much fun as it would be to rise to the bait, I restrained myself; this wasn't the time or the place to start a brawl. "Your duties will start tomorrow. Karkat Vantas, you are dismissed." He turned his back from where I knelt and vanished out of the nondescript room. My knees creaked slightly as I rose to my feet.

Even though they told me this was an important job, I knew better. This position was given to the clumsiest, weakest, and most pathetic knight of each generation. I was doomed to a life of monotonous paperwork and eternal boredom.

The work wasn't hard; I received assignment requests from locals and from the throne, and I had to decide which one of my knights to assign them to. I kept track of where the knights were and what they were doing, and I reported them if they fucked shit up. It wasn't what I became a knight to do, but it could have been worse.

One of the perks was that I got to spend extra time with Terezi. She was the youngest advisor to the Queen, and consequently lived in the castle full time. I lived there as well, so it was easier to make space in both of our schedules to meet. It also meant she could ambush me from behind a tapestry and, you know what, I'd rather not talk about it.

We'd known each other for nearly a decade, and about a year ago we began courting. It was more like I finally stopped denying my feelings and she didn't reject me like the loser I am. I asked her to marry me not long after, which I'd also prefer not to talk about, and she said that when an advisor joined up who was younger than her, she would be ready. I was disappointed to say the least, but I could understand. Those other advisors were like vultures; if they saw any sign of weakness, they would strike. Especially on someone younger and female. I went to the local blacksmith and had two rings made; they represented a promise to each other. We wore them every day, a silent symbol of our commitment.

We kept our relationship quiet; only our closest friends knew about it, and we didn't have a lot of friends. Actually, there was only one other person who knew. Vriska Serket, the vicious knight girl who happened to be Terezi's best friend. She and I trained to be knights together, though she was always more capable than me at fighting and pretty much everything else. She crushed me in every spar, though I never gave up on someday beating her.

When she found out about my new position, I had to slam a door in her face to get her to stop laughing.

When Terezi and I first started courting, Vriska tried to break us up. I guess I didn't pass her 'test', whatever it was. But she accepted me now, so somewhere along the way I must've changed her mind. She's a bit crazy.

So nothing terribly interesting happened for some time. I spent a few minutes each day praying for a younger advisor, and about eight hours sending my troupe of knights across the globe.

Just over two weeks before everything went to hell, I sent one Dave Strider to Lofaf to hunt a witch. He returned a week later, and I didn't really think anything of his mission. Ten minutes after I dismissed him from my quarters, a messenger arrived to deliver some terrible news.

The Queen was dead. She had collapsed of a sudden illness a few hours before, and there was nothing the castle healers could do to save her. The messenger only stayed for a moment; he still needed to tell the other residents.

I sat against one of the walls in my room, my head cradled in my hands. I knew the Queen was getting old, but I always thought we had more time. This could potentially be disastrous. I only had a few minutes to mope before being interrupted.

When Terezi knocked on my door, I forced myself to gather some composure. She opened the door before I could reach it, hitting her cane against the side of the door as she entered.

"Hey." I greeted her politely, unsure if she'd already heard the news or not. Judging from the prominent scowl permeating her expression, she had.

"Karkat," she crossed the room to sit on my bed, tapping her cane against the outside of my ankle. "You heard?"

I nodded once, sitting down next to her. I draped one arm around her shoulders slowly, drawing her closer and treasuring her warmth. She shifted into my side, and my heart lifted slightly. Only for a moment though.

"It was poison," She sighed. My blood ran cold as I gaped at her, a chill running down my spine.

"What!?" There was nothing else to say in this situation.

"Somebody poisoned the Queen." Terezi turned towards me, and if she could see she would have been looking right into my eyes. I wanted to doubt her statement, but after all this time I knew better.

"Well that's fan-fucking-tastic." I scoffed. "You're not going to do something foolish are you?" She wasn't the rash type, but something about her expression made me worry. The way her knuckles whitened against her cane didn't help.

"No," she said after few tense seconds. "Not yet. Not until I can prove it." She wiggled out of my grasp, standing with her back to me. "Be careful; something doesn't smell right."

My heart clenched in an unnerving manner, telling me something I clearly didn't want to hear.

Terezi started to walk away, but I stood up and grabbed one of her wrists, pulling her back towards me. I kissed her firmly on the lips, and for one moment, everything felt right. "You be careful too."

After I released her, she vanished out the door with only one glance back. When she was gone I allowed myself to collapse back onto the bed.

The situation was only getting more and more complicated.

The next morning, I reported to my duties as if nothing had changed. Life in the castle had to go on as normal, or other kingdom's could have seen this as time as a sign of weakness. I monitored the training room that day, helping a few of the younger squires with their sword work. Vriska was there as well, sparing with the group as I instructed them. She beat them one by one, criticizing their technique the entire time.

When they started losing in less than ten seconds, I let them take a break. That might have been a mistake, since Vriska came over to talk to me during it. I didn't have time for this nonsense, and clearly she felt the same way.

"I can't believe I'm doing this." She scowled, shoving a piece of paper into my grasp before storming off. She didn't even give me enough time to think of a good retort. I was going to shout after her that passing notes was for children, but she was already out of earshot by the time I came up with it.

The slip of paper was from Terezi, and it read that I should keep an eye on Sir Scratch; he was her prime suspect of the crime. She thought he was associated with the Felt. Also, I should eat this note after I read it, she wrote it in red so it would be delicious.

I crumpled it in my fist, glaring at where Serket had resumed dominating the squires. Why didn't Terezi tell me these things directly? It wasn't odd for the advisors to mistrust each other; she told me about their shenanigans all the time. We just saw each other last night, what had changed?

I set the thought aside for now; it was time to resume training. I worked with the group for a few more distracted hours before releasing them for the day.

Vriska tried to vanish into the crowd before I could catch her, but she wasn't fast enough. I blocked her path to the door as the squires filed out. Once they were all gone, I waved the crumpled paper in her face.

"What the hell this?" I practically growled, "You don't seriously expect me to believe Terezi actually wrote this bullshit."

"I transcribed it for her." Vriska crossed her arms, smirking slightly. "Duuuuuuuuh. Did you need something Karkat?"

"What aren't you telling me?" I mirrored her posture. "Terezi doesn't send notes; she confronts her problems head on. And you don't deliver notes like a fucking mailman."

The smirk vanished from Vriska's expression. "Well, maybe she's playing it safe this time." One hand fiddled nervously with her sword hilt, pulling it out a few inches only to push it right back in. "I wouldn't bother, but she insisted on doing it this way." Vriska glanced around the room, confirming that we were the only two people present. She looked like she didn't want to say any more, but I glared at her until she relented. "This morning she had an… incident with Sir Scratch. She said it wasn't that big of a deal, but she doesn't want to implicate you in the situation."

I raised one eyebrow; how could passing a note prevent me from being implicated? We were promised to each other, and even though most of the castle didn't know that, they could obviously see that there was something between us. If Sir Scratch had hurt her, he would pay. I didn't care how high up in the government he was, nobody messed with my family. My pulse rose as I tried to control my anger.

"An incident?" I grabbed the handle of the sickle on my belt, the feel of it in my hand calming me slightly. "What kind of incident?" Depending on her answer, I might have made my first kill that night.

"Just the usual posturing and threatening." Vriska shrugged, her smirk returning. "Nothing terribly out of the ordinary; she didn't even accuse him of anything yet."

I released my sickle, letting out the breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. "Are you going to look into it?"

Vriska nodded once, and the determined look in her eyes told me she had the situation under control.

"Very well." I turned my back on her, preparing to leave the room. "You can have this week off from training the squires to take care of it."

She didn't say anything as I walked away. I was finally glad to have this job; perhaps this position wasn't so boring after all. It certainly had its perks. Since she was one of my knights, I actually had the power to reassign her.

Even though I sent Vriska to look into Sir Scratch, I couldn't just let him get away with harassing Terezi. He needed to know that if he fucked with her, he fucked with me too. And I hit back ten times harder than I received, especially when protecting those I cared about.

I waited until the next day, hoping to talk to Terezi again before confronting him. But she didn't show up at my quarters that night, and when I knocked on her door she didn't answer. My worry only increased; I knew this was serious, but I didn't really want to believe it. Hopefully she would be safe on her own for the night.

I didn't sleep well, but that was nothing unusual.

After leaving my quarters in the morning, I gave a few knights some new assignments. I asked them one by one if they knew where Sir Scratch was, until the sixth one finally did. He wasn't too far from my current location, and it only took me about ten more minutes to locate him.

He was standing by one of the large stain glass windows, staring out it while leaning on a cane. The window depicted our recently departed Queen, may she rest in peace. I fingered the handle of my sickle as I approached, wary of any motion he could make. His hands tightened almost imperceptibly around the cane as he heard my steps, knuckles turning white.

"Did you need something, knight master Vantas?" He asked before I had a chance to confront him. Scratch didn't even turn his head to address me.

Suddenly, I had no clue what to say. If I confronted him, I would seem suspicious. I might've even been doing exactly what Terezi tried to avoid. He might've tried to kill me then, or he could've even gone after Terezi later. As much as I wanted to rip the fuckers head off, I knew that would be exceedingly foolish.

"Nothing," I ended up saying, spitting the words out through my teeth. "Just passing through."

He didn't say anything as I walked back out of the room, but his grip on the cane relaxed.

I still had more duties to do, and I forced myself not to think about the whole situation as I completed them. Eridan Ampora actually approached me and asked if I would help him guard the princess until the coronation. He seemed twitchier than normal; the stress must have gotten to him. I accepted the position since he seemed kind of desperate; he had a lot of trust issues so it was probably really hard for him to ask for my help. I spent a few hours standing guard, but nothing eventful happened.

The next day was more of the same, and I didn't see Terezi a single time. I did, though, have a strange encounter with Dave Strider.

He cornered me near the princess's quarters and asked if we could speak in private. I almost said no, but perhaps he had something important to talk about.

Once we were behind closed doors, his expression darkened. "I have a message for you."

"From who?" I narrowed my eyes. All I seemed to be getting lately was hand delivered messages, and they never meant anything good.

"Vriska Serket" He crossed his arms over his chest. When I didn't move, he continued. "She said to tell you that she plans on eliminating the problem. She's going to cut its legs off."

I smirked, "Well you can tell her that she should go for the head."

He didn't seem amused. "I'll let her know. She also said that the coronation is in five days, and it'll be done by then." He turned away from me, preparing to exit the small space we currently occupied. "If you need an extra sword, I might be able to lend a hand."

I watched him go in silence. He'd only been a knight for just over a week, and I wasn't sure I trusted him yet. But Vriska entrusted him with that message, so perhaps I should keep him in mind. It seemed like he was planning on helping her with her task. She would probably need the help.

Five days was a pretty short amount of time to kill the Felt in.

**To Be Continued...**

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End Note: Thanks for reading. Stay tuned.


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